Snail on the Sidewalk

Sometime during my college years, I developed a fright of all crawly creatures from spiders to crabs to mice. This is markedly different from my childhood, when ladybugs and caterpillars crawled over my fingers and I collected hermit crabs at the seashore. Now, it is all I can do to keep the screams inside.

But, as I’m trying to nurture a true nature-lover in my daughter, I try very hard to hide the squirms.

“Ooooh, Look! A spider.” [breathe, breathe, smile, breathe, don’t really look directly at it.]

“Let’s take it outside—actually, let’s get Abbi to take it outside.”

Today, as we walked back from the playground, we stopped to literally smell the flowers, which were blooming in early April and filling the air with perfume. My oldest daughter stuck her nose into a cluster of flowers and a snail dropped out of them unto the sidewalk. As she bent down to pick it up, I resisted the, “Yuck, don’t touch it” that welled up and instead averted my eyes. It’s not going to hurt her, so I’ll just look away until she’s done with her exploration.

Then I hear a crunch, like eggshells on the sidewalk, and see her step on the snail’s shell with her shoe.

NO! It’s a living creature!
EWWWWW! Gross.
How’s she supposed to learn what it is unless I teach her?

Too conflicted to look at the dead snail on the sidewalk, I grabbed her hand and we hurry away.

The Hummer on the Balcony

My husband calls it my hummer.

It is big, huge, bulky, but it has 12" air-filled tires, full seat recline, swivel wheels, and I can push it with one finger.

I call it, "stroller love of my life."

Since my first pregnancy, I became fascinated by strollers, sort of like an obsession over sports cars. It's not an excessive obsession--although I love looking at strollers in the store, I only have a Zooper Z-street single stroller (under 90 bucks), a $15 umbrella stroller that got run over by our car, and my new Mountain Buggy double stroller. Nothing like the 15 or 20 strollers many of my new stroller fanatic friends have. And I'm not willing to pay $500 for a stroller. Once I decide on a purchase, I don't look back at those message boards, at least until my stroller breaks down or I need to upgrade to a triple.

I spent hours researching double strollers on the internet, and learned about Bugaboos, Baby Joggers, BJCSDs, Inglesinas, MBUDs, and Bobs. Stroller message boards are full of moms boasting their latest $600 addition to a garage-full of strollers. Moms who buy new skins every month for their strollers, who charge $30 to newcomers for custom, personal advice on which stroller to buy, and who laugh at moms who push Gracos (hey, I like Graco strollers, just not their double ones, which, with two toddlers inside, can be like pushing a train)

Materialistic? Yes. Petty? Yes. Do I have nothing better to do? No. I doubt I'd like these mothers very much in person--they are probably the same mothers in designer jeans, $100 diaper bags, who frown at other moms in the playground. The Washington Post would call them "hip moms". I'm not sure what I would call them--definitely not hip, maybe image-obsessed.

BUT, I convinced myself, I needed to figure out what stroller to buy.

I finally decided on a stroller that normally retails for $600--that I found in an overstock, returned open-box, 2005 model. Hurray! I got a top-of-the-line, solid stroller for the price of a Graco.

To my stroller friends, all I'd have to say is I bought a navy MBUD and they would know exactly what that meant. The tough, all-terrain stroller that only outdoorsy moms would like, but their husbands go ga-ga for.

I wanted something more suited to power-walking, hiking trails, suburban streets, and sand-filled playgrounds than malls, narrow aisles, and coffee shops. So I got a super durable, rugged all-terrain jogging stroller that "pushes like butter", as strollermama would say.

Once I buy something that I've researched well, I won't take any criticism. Nope, it's perfect. I don't look back, it's just what I wanted. Never mind that it folds like a 30-lb. bedroom dresser and I huff and puff as I heave it into the trunk of our Corolla. Miraculously, it does fit.

Or that the only place I can store it in our one-bedroom apartment is on our balcony.

Never mind that women--the Graco moms--give me funny looks as I push this lawnmower into my neighborhood coffee shop (effortlessly and one-handed, I might add), but a male customer remarks, "that's a neat stroller!" Even my husband admitted it was a good buy--it has good parts, he said.

I haven't gone back to the stroller boards since my last, and final, stroller purchase. I know strollerqueen would just tell me I need a lightweight, side-by-side for malls and plane trips, but I'm not that hip.

I'm happy with this one-time, and I hope lasting, waltz with a really cool stroller.

Coping with Fatigue

After the birth of my second daughter, I struggled with intense fatigue due to both excessive blood loss during labor, anemia, and the exhaustion of being a new mom. The daily challenges of caring for a newborn and an attention-hungry, demanding toddler seemed just too much. Every night, knowing I would only have 4 or 5 hours of sleep, I panicked and wondered how I would ever make it through the next day.

Somehow, as my mother reassured me, you always make it through the next day. Four things in particular helped me handle the fatigue I was feeling, and still feel from time to time. Actually, five things, if you count Starbucks.

The first was convincing myself that Allah (swt) would never give me this task and responsibility if I wasn't physically capable of handling it. If He gave the responsibility, He would also give me all of the tools-physical, mental, emotional-I need to successfully handle it. The verse in the Quran, "Allah does not burden a soul more than it can bear," is not just in tragedy or trials, but also in the daily responsibilities we face. When we feel overwhelmed by a trust or responsibility, it is probably because we don't have the right mindset, or are underestimating our capabilities, not that we are incompetent. So stepping up to the plate was not a physical impossibility, but a matter of working on myself--on my patience, endurance, and willingness to put my personal comfort aside sometimes.

Reliance on Allah, or tawakkul, was the second factor that helped me get through the fatigue, although I wish I had nurtured this characteristic more in myself. My husband and I are not the only caretakers of our children--Allah (swt) watches over them, takes care of their well-being, and envelopes them in His mercy and love.

The third was my sisters in my usra--as usual, they "got my back". They cooked for me, watched my older daughter while I caught a few much-needed hours of sleep, and inquired frequently about me. I will never forget how they helped me get through a really tough time.

Finally, I was reminded about the story of Fatimah, may Allah be pleased with her, the daughter of Prophet Muhammad (saw). Overwhelmed by housework, and probably struggling with young children too, she went to her father to ask for a servant to help her. The Prophet responded with a very different sort of help: recite every night Subhanallah 33 times, Alhamdulillah 33 times, and Allahu Akbar 34 times.

I always interpreted the moral of this story as "increase in remembrance of Allah" and "it is better to increase in worship than seek benefit in this world." Those may be lessons to be learned from the story, but it can also be taken literally. Saying these words every night--will really help lessen the fatigue! It gives you energy to accomplish your tasks, a spring in your step, and relieves stress.

And then, OK, a tall cappuccino every once in a while also helps.

Sensing Sincerity

Have you ever experienced a total mindset change?

Mindset changes can be gradual, developing with the accumulation of experience and knowledge, or they can be sudden, like waking up from a deep sleep. Sudden change requires an instantaneous realization, the precise key that was needed for the lock in your head.

As a MAS Youth worker, I was often skeptical of whether I could really impact the youth around me. I tried this, tried that, was it working? Was it making a difference? Sometimes I thought yes, sometimes it all seemed like one big guess.

Then I heard something in a workshop by the MAS Tarbiyah Department that really got me thinking:

The first, most useful tool for us as mentors is our sincerity.

People around us sense that sincerity, so that even if we make some mistakes or don’t do everything perfectly, they can tell when someone truly cares for them, wants them to succeed in their life mission, and is trying to empower them. Sincerity, hoping for nothing but the pleasure of Allah in guiding others, makes the hearts open and the ears listen. We have an array of tools to make our youth think, make them cry, make them talk, make them act, but it is the sincerity in our hearts: that will win the Help of Allah: that will make them truly feel empowered to change. This genuine, selfless concern for the youth we hope to influence can work wonders.

Aha!

Suddenly the daunting responsibility of helping others to change became conceivable, because while working on others I can strengthen my efforts by working on myself. I can be amplifying the progress of my usra members by making sincere dua for my sisters, nurturing deep-rooted concern and care for them, and always believing in their potential. Not only, as Shaikh Qaradawi explains in Sincerity, is sincerity to Allah the magic ingredient that turns every action into worship, but it also brings synergy to our work and deepens our ability to influence others, with the will of Allah (swt).

How Wonderful a Servant!

(This is just a rephrasing of the idea posted on the blog of Br. Ahmad Deif--yes, I'm hijacking his post)

In Surah Saad, Allah (swt) says of two individuals, “How wonderful a servant! He returned often in repentance.” In all of the Quran, this description is only mentioned of these two individuals. Who were they?

Ayyub, may Allah be pleased with him! The prophet who was struck with such calamity that it retell his story again and again, awed by his patience. All of his children died–how painful the loss of just one! Stricken with disease and abandoned by all but his wife, people ran from him, afraid of contagion, and shook their heads in condemnation. They said that this Prophet must have deserved Allah’s wrath, so severely was he tested. This continued for 18 years, and Ayyub responded only with adoration of His Lord, thankfulness for the years he had spent in prosperity, and worship.

And Sulayman, may Allah be pleased with him! The Prophet and king who asked Allah to “bestow upon me a kingdom such as shall not belong to any one after me.” Allah gave him the ability to command the wind, which “blew gently by his order wherever he willed,” the animals, “who did his every bid” and the jinn, who built structures and dived under the sea. Unimaginable wealth and powers!

How is it that two men, two prophets, of such different situations, merit the same title from Allah: “How wonderful a servant!” (Ni’m al-Abd)

This is testament that the circumstances of the Muslim are irrelevant–it is the state of the heart that matters. Whether one is tested with trial or prosperity, tested with character or illness, it is your relationship with Allah throughout life that is the crucial element. It is the thankfulness, repentance, humility before Allah, not the outer circumstances, that determines where we stand in His eyes.